A newbie question on mining, posting, gpus etc.

[Anenome]

I've been searching for a while and can't find any one document that explains all to newbies. Does anyone know? And I have zero money, in here or the real world. How can I get coins? Someone said mining, but what was my GPU. Well, I'm on a brand new mac G5 with 1 terabyte hard drive, 8 gigs RAM, etc. but don't know where to find info on GPU usage. Can someone explain?
Also, I've posted several times and this group is the only one I can post in. How do I enable being able to post in other discussions?

Please let me know,

Thanks in advance,

anenome

[Stephen Gornick]

I'm on a brand new mac G5 with 1 terabyte hard drive, 8 gigs RAM, etc. but don't know where to find info on GPU usage.

Assuming that is an NVidia GPU, you're not going to be getting much from mining.  From 3 to 20 MHash/s maybe.  A $150 graphics card in a PC is going to get 10 to 50 times that.
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparison

I've been searching for a while and can't find any one document that explains all to newbies.

If you wish to run the client, here's the steps:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Getting_started

and some more info:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Introduction

Some useful info might also be found in the FAQ:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ

For mining, here's a good resource:
 - http://ewoah.com/technology/a-very-good-guide-to-building-a-bitcoin-mining-rig-cluster-guide

[gochk]

Also, I've posted several times and this group is the only one I can post in. How do I enable being able to post in other discussions?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15958.0

You are considered "established" if you have spent 4 hours online and have made 5 posts.

[zozpuff]

i'm new too. here's my plan: accumulate some bitcoins in a wallet on my phone to start with, then after it becomes more than i would carry in cash worry about setting up a second wallet offline to send them to.

do you have an android phone?

https://market.android.com/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet

you run the app, generate a wallet, and have people send bitcoins to the address. they should show up. it's that simple.

the hard part is convincing someone to send you bitcoins.

[cabreca]

For GPU mining on a Mac use DiabloMiner.  Also, as it stands right now mining difficulty is too high to go at it solo on a single PC (you'll spend a lifetime and not generate a single bitcoin).  Look into the mining pools.

[DrHaribo]

If you are new to bitcoins and want to try mining, feel free to check out my mining pool and mining software at bitminter.com - one of my design goals was to make it as easy as possible for newbies to use.